Trucks are often used on construction sites to deliver and retrieve supplies and materials, and when stopped often turn off their front and rear lights and brake lights on the rear of their trucks as well as the rear facing brake lights on the upper rear of the truck cabs. A problem occurs that the trucks are not easily visible when stopped when their lights are turned off during these stops. As such, it can be dangerous to others when these trucks are stopped since their visibility can be severely limited, especially in dark locations or during storms, and the like.
Leaving on the truck vehicle's lights on may not be enough to bring attention to the stopped trucks. As such, there is a need to have extra lights for bringing attention to a stopped truck vehicle to increase the visibility of the stopped vehicle as well as for safety reasons.
Additionally, standard vehicle lights are usually limited to be used for breaking, signaling or similar functions, and are not versatile to bring separate attention to a stopped truck vehicle.
Over the years various types of products have been proposed for providing extra lights to truck cab brake lights, but would not be satisfactory as an after-market product. U.S. Pat. No. 8,956,020 to Graves et al. describes an auxiliary lamp mounting adapter assembly for vehicles that include truck cabs. This adapter assembly requires the rear brake light on the rear of the truck cab be removed and the opening in the back of the cab for the existing light being exposed. A new housing having a main opening that generally matches and aligns with the existing opening in the back of the truck cab. The new housing includes auxiliary lights to the right and/or left of the main opening. The removed brake light can be remounted through the main opening in the new housing, and fastened to the cab, without having to use additional fasteners, that can penetrate into the rear cab.
A problem with this adapter assembly is that by using the existing rear brake light with this adapter assembly, the resulting light could appear to be an obvious modification to the existing brake light and not look like original truck equipment.
Another problem is that many different types of adapter assemblies would need to be manufactured for the different U.S. and foreign tucks, since truck cabs do not have identical brake lights on the back of their cabs.
Additionally, the auxiliary lights would require separate wiring that must connect to the existing wiring, and could cause problems if not properly connected.
Still furthermore, by only using the existing brake light fasteners, the longer replacement housing may not be properly sealed and seated against the truck cab, and could vibrate and separate during regular use. The larger replace housings could also cause the existing fasteners loose causing water leaks into the cab.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems with the prior art.